


forgive us now for what we've done

by kiira



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3487112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiira/pseuds/kiira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“we will give you your people back, we will keep the ark people, and you will retreat. those are the terms of the agreement,” and the man smirks at you like he knows what you’re going to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgive us now for what we've done

1.

You’re forever (forever, forever, forever) Commander first, and it’s been hammered into every bone of your being since you were barely old enough to think. Hammered, though, isn’t quite the right word because  _Commander_  lives in the small pocket next to your heart (it’s something just as  _Lexa_  as your hands, or laugh, or the way you don’t like waking up late).

And Commander is something bigger than Lexa too, something that makes decisions that are impossibly  _huge_ , that stain your hands with screaming blood for years and years and years (that make Clarke look at you like you’re some kind of murderer, some kind of evil; but Clarke, we’re the same, you and I, aren’t we?)

Aren’t we.

2.

You have your people back; you have your people back and god they are a broken bunch, blinking and straggling behind the army like little children, ones too young to be fighting, too old to be left behind.

You can see your army from here, sitting on your horse, spread out beneath you like a writhing mass (they do not know how close they came to death; you had one word, one choice and you could have killed them all).

3.

“We have three sharpshooters sitting inside that door,” and your lungs stop working, the shouts of your army grow dimmer, he keeps talking, “and they’ve all been treated with the marrow, so there’s nothing your radiation can do to stop them.”

The mountain man looks at you, laughing even though you have a knife pressed to his throat, blood smeared along the blade already, “Once you get through, if you get through the shooters, there’s only more. We know you’re coming,  _Commander_. We have your people, we have the Ark people, we’re going to kill them all.”

Your hand shakes and stop and  _stop_.

“You do have a choice though, princess.”

Everything blurs to a stop. Everything is dead around you; everything will be dead around you; there really isn’t a difference.

“We will give you your people back, we will keep the Ark people, and you will retreat. Those are the terms of the agreement,” and the man smirks at you like he knows what you’re going to say.

You calmly cut his throat, and grab at the mess of wires that curl up over his ear (someone important is listening; someone important cares.)

“ _Sha_ ,” you hiss, “yes,” and think something like an apology (a prayer) to the stars.

His blood smears under your eyes and you walk away.

4.

Your people glow with the light of a thousand lanterns and you swallow down Clarke’s eyes; betrayal.

You are (were) are right; the lanterns look like stars.

3.

Lexa walks away and for a split second you consider running after her, screaming because she  _promised_ ; because blood must have blood and where is the  _blood_?

(It’s dripping down Lexa’s hands, you realize, Lexa’s hands are smothered in the blood of your friends and she’s just walking away).

And you thought there was an alliance: you thought she had agreed to help you, thought she had agreed to fight until it was over (until they were dead, or you were dead or;), thought she trusted you.

Realize now you should have never trusted her.

2.

Everyone else has just given up. Left you alone, something like alone on the top of a mountain and something like fury boils in you.

You were less than eighteen and you were left to die in some new world, you were all children left to die. They can leave you again and again and again but what they don’t know is that you will  _not die_. And neither will your friends locked inside the mountain because  _you_  haven’t given up.

Someone taps on your shoulder, and you turn quickly, hand on your gun.

“I’m still mad at you,” and it’s Octavia, “I’m still mad at you, but everyone’s gone and Bellamy’s still in there somewhere, and I’m not sure what’s going on, but we need to get in there somehow.”

Her hair is half-falling out of the elaborate braids and it looks like someone tried and failed to cut her throat; you have never before been more glad to see someone.

“I don’t know how to get in,” you admit, and Octavia smiles, dangerous, sharp; (wolf).

“You ready for a fight?”

1.

It’s less of a  _fight_  and more of a  _use tone generator to overpower reapers_   _and then get in through a door_ , but if Octavia wants to call it a fight, you’re fine with it.

The door you get in leads to some dark, cave-like room, full of empty cages and bile burns your throat.

“What the  _fuck_  happened here?” Octavia whispers, and you glare at her ( _Lexa betrayed us all, Lexa made the only choice she could, I can’t think about Lexa, Lexa, Lexa_ ).

“I don’t know,” you snap, and Octavia rolls her eyes, keeps moving along the wall (she moves less like she grew up under the floor now, less like a child of small spaces and the dark and more like a grounder, like a girl of the woods and trees).

You keep your hand on your gun as you tiptoe across the floor and everything seems almost funny; you’re not a warrior, not a soldier, not an anything, you’re just a girl who went to prison for knowing too much. (Octavia a girl who went for existing).

“I think I remember Bell saying something about a mess hall,” you whisper, trying to remember where the mess hall is, trying to think why the whole complex is so… quiet. It shouldn’t be this quiet, there should be guards. Your fingers twitch on your gun and Octavia holds her knife closer to her (where are the guards, where are the guards, where  _is everyone_?)

You take a deep breath and turn another corner. Nothing.

“Clarke,” Octavia says, “I don’t think there’s anyon–”

And that’s when she screams.

0.

Victory, you think, tastes like burning bones (like needles, like marrow, like grinning death).

**Author's Note:**

> ..... i realize now it sounds like octavia dies. that is not the intention. octavia doesn't die at all octavia is my precious daughter
> 
> /
> 
> come hang out @ laurelhollis.tumblr.com if u want to i guess


End file.
